Aleah Cornelius
Aleah Cornelius
Neuroblastoma stage IV
http://www.caringbridge.org/ky/aleah
Our Story
Aleah was born on July 28, 2001,a healthy and beautiful baby. She hit many delvelopmental milestones early and was happy and very energetic.
Aleah showed no signs until the fall of 2003 of any illnesses.
Aleah started to sleep more often during the day beginning about October, but we dismissed this to her schedule being so altered since school had started back and she was having to get up so early. Our baby sitter kept telling me she was noticing a difference in Aleah as each week passed by.
Right before Thanksgiving, I decided to take her to our Pediatrician to have him look at her and see if anything was wrong. Aleah was diagnosed as being "severely anemic" and was put on iron supplements.
A few more weeks passed, Aleah remained on the iron and nothing was changing.
Aleah didn't make any progress on getting better so after Christmas Aleah was taken to a pediatrician in Lexington.
Lab results confirmed Aleah's hematocrit dropping more than 10 points and she was sent to UK Children's Hospital for an MRI.
That night she was diagnosed with Neuroblastoma.
More testing confirmed Aleah was Stage 4 Neuroblastoma with tumors in her skull, belly, and cancer present in her bone marrow.
Aleah slowly got through 6 rounds of chemotherapy then a surgery to remove the stomach tumor. Aleah did well and 60-70% of the tumor had been removed.
In Feburary, Aleah's stem cells were harvested at Cincinnati Children's Hospital for her stem cell transplant in June. We then traveled to Cincinnati on June 14th for a two month stay for her transplant.
Aleah had 7 days of high dose chemotherapy to kill the remaining bone marrow. Her counts dropped to 0 and the cells were given to her on June 23, 2004. It was a slow process of healing and her counts were taking a long time to come up. So, she was given a "boost" of cells to help bring them up.
Aleah then was discharged from Cincinnati Children's and was sent back to Central KY to move on to the next phase of her protocol.
Aleah just started her radiation treatments this last week of August-first week of Sept 2004. She has a total of 14 radiation treatments and following that 6 months on cis-retinoic acid (Accutane). Aleah's latest scans are showing much improvement and clear of neuroblastoma cells. Her stem cell transplant was a success, she has engrafted cells. She is currently on a feeding tube and is running around playing and very happy.
Our journey is not yet over, and we will probably live with the fear of recurrence and other cancers developing for a very long time. But one thing is for sure, we won't give up. We know that there is more that we can do to help save her and we will do anything that we can to save our little girl so that she may have a "normal" and happy life.
The radiation hasn't started to phase her, she is such a tough little girl after all that she has endured over these past 8 months.
We still have a long road to recovery. As I said before, Our lives will never be the same. We have forgotten what "normal" means.
We could never have gotten this far had it not been for our Heavenly Father. We have so often prayed for Aleah's care and recovery from this cancer. Our family, friends, Church and our community have all been so wonderful with providing us with much needed love and support during this time. We know that God is watching over our little girl and that he has a hand in giving us the blessings we have seen in this journey so far.
Since the chemotherapy and radiation have side effects of putting her further at risk for developing other kinds of cancers and Neuroblastoma has such a relapse rate, we pray that this is the end of this journey to battle and defeat Neuroblastoma and cancer. We know several other families that have also been affected by this specific disease. One of our dear friends has relapsed several times and is now experiencing the reality of "Experimental" drugs to just try to defeat this powerful cancer. We are frightened to think Aleah could too relapse and that there is so little research done and answers out there about Stage 4 Neuroblastoma and Relapsed NB. Visit www.caringbridge.org/ky/aleah to learn more about Aleah and her progress.
Thank you
Thank you for your contribution to help find a cure for this disease. We know this campaign to help raise money for this cancer is a huge step in helping America become aware of the huge war we have here at home to help save our children. Every child counts and every dollar you help raise matters in this devastating fight to help save our children and kids like our Aleah.
Please give to this cause and remember the lives of many precious children may be saved because you helped win this war on Neuroblastoma!